2025 Dpademy Awards Pt. 3

Hello, and welcome back to the first annual Dpademy Awards. This is part three of a four part series that will be released every Sunday of the month of December. Over the course of the year, I've played over 52 games, and while I've written separate articles for each game, this is where I get to take a closer look at things, big and small, that either I didn't cover or that I wanted to gush more about. The categories are a bit unconventional, but that's part of the fun. For this, I'll only be looking at the 52 games that I covered between June and the end of November. Any games covered in December will be eligible for next year's ceremony. So, without further ado, let's get into it.

• Best Animal Companion

With a surprising lack of contenders, Nix, the merqaal companion from Star Wars Outlaws easily takes the award. In addition to being absolutely adorable, he serves numerous mechanical purposes for the player. He's able to serve as a distraction, which is invaluable in a game where stealth is preferred, if a bit optional. He can also fetch items, pick pockets, help solve puzzles, alert the player to hidden loot, as well as draw enemy fire and set off enemy grenades that are still on their belt. He's also central to Kay's background, and the the mission where you don't have him is easily one of my favorites due to how powerless you feel without him at your side.

• Most Shocking Sense of Agency

So, spoilers should go without saying, but just in case, this is your warning for one of the main plot points in Avowed. The game is full of tiny moments that reflect your choices in the game, but my favorite has to be with the city of Fior mes Iverno in Act 2. Serving as one the major settlements, it's home to two of the four available companions, and as such has plenty of interesting places and quests. Following the main quest, there's a point where we emerge from a dungeon to see the town ablaze, showing the lengths that our enemies will go to and really ramping up the sense of urgency.

The thing is, while the city and its people are ill fated regardless, whether or not it burns is entirely dependent upon the player. This isn't even directly shown or explained to the player, as one might expect, but I instead learned about it when scrolling through the achievements after beating the game. Sure, mechanically it's not all that impressive, but the idea that the fate of the city is dependent upon the player and that I could have saved it was a pleasant surprise that has me eager to return to the game.

• Biggest Surprise

In my article about RoboCop: Rogue City, I make a point of expressing just how abysmal licensed games used to be, and there's certainly no shortage of bad adaptions that still get released each year. I went into the game with my expectations thoroughly in check, ready to plow through whatever garbage the game had for me. However, the very first mission showed a level of polish, care, and love for the property that I wasn't prepared for, which really set the tone for the rest of the experience. While the plot was easy to predict, it still felt like a genuine addition to the RoboCop franchise, going so far as to explore no only the themes presented in the source material, but expand on them in ways that felt natural and very real today. I really don't think I can't express just how good this game is.

• Best Gameplay Mechanic

Having never played the game upon its initial release, I was floored with just how ahead of its time Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver was. In my article, I mentioned how it felt like a very early version of a Soulslike game, and I stand by that statement. Of particular note is the way the game handles death. In most games, death is treated as a penalty, a setback for the player as a punishment for playing poorly. In the worst cases, it traces its roots back to the days of the arcade, where death was a way to get the player to spend more money. Here, death is anything but a negative, as we start the game with our protagonist dying. Instead, death is treated as another state of play, offering new paths and puzzle solutions that actively help you progress. The ability to flip between the living world and the astral plane is both novel and genius.

• Best Downloadable Content

It's almost cheating to put Blood and Wine, the final DLC for The Witcher III here, as it adds more time and content to an already amazing game. Blood and Wine, however, goes so far above what I expected. Taking the player to the land of Toussaint, a location heavily based upon France, we get an impressively large, vibrant map that ditches the dingy browns and grays in favor of rich greens, blues, purples, and reds. The new map is surprisingly large, offering plenty of areas to explore and quests to pursue. The main quest has Geralt dealing with a series of murders under a royal request, and sees the player participate in a knight's tourney, tracking down vampires, and even exploring a delightfully twisted take on familiar fairy tales. The characters introduced are all fun and three dimensional, and the line between right and wrong is delightfully blurred. On top of all of this, the player has access to crafting masterwork armor and upgrading a small vineyard that serves as a fitting reward for Geralt after over 100 hours of adventure. Blood and Wine would work well as a stand alone title, but here serves as a fun new challenge for players that, at times, feels like a well earned victory lap both for the players and the developers.